“We had offered San Antonio Opera a role as a resident company of the Tobin Center, but it has fallen on hard times,” said J. Bruce Bugg, president and chairman of the Bexar County Performing Arts Center Foundation, which is overseeing the Tobin Center. “Opera Theater San Antonio has been in organization the last 18 months. We're hoping for Opera Theater San Antonio to scale up to and to qualify to be the resident opera company,” Bugg said.

San Antonio Opera, which started its 16th season last September, has no assets or staff, said its lawyer, Randy Osherow. It has canceled its productions this year of Mozart's “Don Giovanni” and Rossini's “Barber of Seville” and will file for liquidation once the paperwork is ready to notify season subscribers, musicians and several arts vendors, who would be claimants in the case, Osherow said.

“Every single person is sad that San Antonio Opera has to file for bankruptcy,” Osherow added. “These people are all volunteers. They did this because it was something they loved. The arts are difficult. It is hard to make money in the arts.”

The American Federation of Musicians, Local 23, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming that San Antonio Opera still owes musicians payments for a January 2010 production of Donizetti's “The Daughter of the Regiment” that was canceled.

The 46 musicians of the San Antonio Opera orchestra were told with short notice of the cancellation, after they had prepared to play and had turned down other work to be able to play during that time, said Brian Petkovich, secretary-treasurer of local federation.

The union filed a grievance, and a settlement was worked out in which the musicians would be paid $1,000 each over eight payments, plus $80 to each musician's union pension account, Petkovich said. The payments stopped last year, Petkovich said.

Petkovich estimated that each musician still is owed $750.

Osherow said he believes the musicians' lawsuit would be converted to a bankruptcy claim once San Antonio Opera files for bankruptcy.

The San Antonio Opera began its decline in November when founder Mark Richter, who also served as artistic director, left. Interim successor Terence Frazor cut ties less than two months later when he said the company could no longer make payroll. The company closed its offices in January.

Opera Theater San Antonio plans to make its stage debut May 23, 2013, with the San Antonio Symphony at the Majestic Theatre, said Mel Weingart, Opera Theater San Antonio chairman.

Details about the concert and the company's first two operas in January 2015 will be revealed in a news conference to be held within weeks.

Opera Theater San Antonio is waiting until 2015 for its first staged operas because it wants to attract internationally known stars. “We are dealing with performers who have a lead time of three years,” Weingart said.

Opera Theater San Antonio will use the San Antonio Symphony as its orchestra, Weingart said.

“This will be an audience-driven company with the audience determining the number and variety of the productions,” Weingart said. “We are interested in operating a financially and qualitatively viable company.”

The San Antonio Symphony, slated to be the largest performing arts organization to occupy the Tobin Center, has financial problems, too, ending its 2010-11 season with a deficit and beginning the 2011-12 season without a contract for its musicians. The symphony musicians continue to perform under terms of the previous year's contracted wages.

Negotiations between symphony musicians and management recently resumed. A negotiating session set for today will cover working rules but not next season's salary, said symphony President and CEO Jack Fishman.

“Every nonprofit organization is having trouble raising money this year,” Fishman said. Ticket sales this season are ahead of schedule and individual donations are up, Fishman said. The symphony is trying to close on several pending corporate and foundation gifts, he added.

The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, being constructed at the site of downtown's Municipal Auditorium, is scheduled to open in 2014.